Our library has been closed to the public for months—just like ever other library in the country, I imagine.  Well, last week they started letting us return books through the outside drop boxes and do curbside pick-up off the back-parking lot.  As you can imagine I jumped at this op. 

Unfortunately, I seemed to have dropped a book borrowed from my friend through the drop box along with my library books. (Oy!)

Long-story, short, I called the library to rectify my mistake and had a lovely conversation with one of our newer librarians. I ended up telling her I didn’t even like the book (a short novel where the children literally catch on fire). The reason I didn’t finish reading this piece of well-hyped fiction was the heroine. What a loser. Seriously, as a child she gets a chance to better herself at a private girls’ school, then her roommate (from a very wealthy family) screws up big time and her family convinces the poor girl’s mom to let her daughter take the fall.

I could have gotten behind that as a premise—it’s realistic enough, but her situation never changes. Can you tell I am so not a fan of literary fiction? (Hah!)

I told the librarian I was sick to death of heroines like that one.  All those horrid books we had to read in school with their insipid heroines: Daisy (Great Gatsby), Maria (For Whom the Bell Tolls), or Sophia (Tom Jones).

Where were/are the women/girls a school girl or woman could root for, look up to? Dream about? Admire? Use as a role model? No where, that’s where. Why do you think I write the kind of women I do?

What books give/gave you hope? Showed you women of daring and substance? Please share. As ever, be well and be kind.